Basically, he's saying that Deus Ex fails to place the blame on a particular person or organization, and, instead, uses theories of shadowy games and conspiracies to terrify us, so it's useless as a parable. At least, I think that's what he's saying. I am terrible at paraphrasing, so you should probably read it for yourself. I don't know that this makes the game any less relevant -- after all, the rich are still wiping their asses with the poor the world over -- but it does make me think of it differently. Are it's political messages still important? Was the "God" Helios referred to an analogue for corporations? Or just for government? What did Maggie Chow mean when she said, "intimately?"

Heliocentric

10-01-2012, 10:35 PM

The blame? Blame about what? When i joined up with the Helios the deeply evil ("....Yes!") AI and took over the world to rule as cyborg Tyrant I did it knowingly.

ALL HAIL

outoffeelinsobad

10-01-2012, 10:40 PM

Blame for the world going to shit, I guess.

Helios was evil? Can machines be evil?

Keep

11-01-2012, 02:53 AM

"Deus Ex fails to do what great science fiction does best: address head-on the core problems of contemporary society."

I would agree with this: By explaining everything via conspiracy theory wackiness, Desu Ex doesn't really engage with the reality of our contemporary problems (unless, that is, the reality is the Illuminati really do run everything...)

However I think the article undermines itself completely by then saying:
"[In HR] they would’ve done better to reveal the corporate malaise of power and money grabs through technological and media control, especially of the bosses, rather than paint everyone with a benevolent brush."

So...HR should've painted the bosses as a conspiracy theorist would've, as evul boogey men in it for the power? But yet the original Deus Ex's problem was its unrealistic view of what causes our problems (namely, conspiracy boogey men who're only in it for the power)?

Hm.

metalangel

11-01-2012, 08:46 AM

As a side note, that site (whether in mobile view or not) was constantly accessing my iPhone's data connection for the chat function, which it doesn't seem possible to disable.